Splinternet

Updated 2026-07-31

The splinternet (also referred to as cyber-balkanization or internet balkanization) is a characterization of the Internet as splintering and dividing due to various factors, including technology, commerce, politics, nationalism, religion, and divergent national interests. The term describes a process in which the open, globally connected Internet fragments into a collection of separate, often incompatible networks.

Origin and History

The term was first used in 2001 by Clyde Wayne Crews, a researcher at the Cato Institute, to describe his concept of "parallel Internets that would be run as distinct, private, and autonomous universes." The underlying concept dates back further, to a pair of articles by Marshall van Alstyne and Erik Brynjolfsson in Science (1996) and at the International Conference on Information Systems (1997). They argued that the Internet and related technologies "have the potential to fragment interaction and divide groups by leading people to spend more time on special interests and by screening out less preferred contact," a phenomenon they termed "cyberbalkanization."

Crews originally used the term in a positive sense, but later writers, such as Scott Malcomson, have used it pejoratively to describe a growing threat to the Internet's status as a globe-spanning network of networks.

Causes and Dimensions

Technology

Splintering can occur when new devices use different standards and proprietary formats. Users increasingly access the Internet through hardware tools with their own unique sets of standards for displaying information, including ad networks and formats that can "hide content" from search engines. Journalist and author Doc Searls described the splinternet as the "growing distance between the ideals of the Internet and the realities of dysfunctional nationalisms."

Commercial Lock-In

Companies may create walled ecosystems that restrict interoperability. As The Atlantic noted, many new gadgets have a "hidden agenda" to hold users within a particular ecosystem of content display and advertising. Forrester Research vice president Josh Bernoff wrote that "the unified Web is turning into a Splinternet" as content on devices other than PCs, or hidden behind passwords, makes it harder to create a unified experience.

Politics and Nationalism

Governments erect barriers to control information flow across borders. Notable examples include:

China's Great Firewall, which blocks access to foreign websites and services for political reasons.
Russia's Sovereign Internet Law, which allows the country to partition itself from the rest of the Internet.
Other nations, including the United States and Australia, have discussed plans to create similar firewalls to block specific content such as child pornography or weapon-making instructions.

A 2007 survey by Harvard and other universities found that Iran, China, and Saudi Arabia filter a wide range of topics, while numerous countries engage in "substantial politically motivated filtering," including Burma, China, Iran, Syria, Tunisia, and Vietnam.

Security and Espionage

Following the 2013 disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden regarding far-reaching espionage systems installed by the NSA at critical Internet junctions, various governments raised concerns about creating independent networks to isolate their traffic from foreign surveillance programs. In October 2013, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff announced plans to create a "walled-off, national Intranet."

Cyberbalkanization (Social Fragmentation)

Cyberbalkanization refers to the division of the Internet into sub-groups with specific interests (digital tribes), where members primarily communicate or read material of interest only to their subgroup. This can occur when people engage in confirmation bias and create echo chambers, using the Internet to exclude or avoid views that contradict their beliefs. In his 2001 book Republic.com, Cass Sunstein argued that cyberbalkanization could damage democracy by allowing different groups to avoid exposure to one another.

Notable Events

2010: The Economist wrote that "powerful forces are threatening to balkanise" the Internet, arguing it could soon splinter along geographic and commercial boundaries.
2024 Global IT Outage: On 19 July 2024, when a worldwide IT outage affected many countries, China largely escaped unscathed due to its reliance on domestic cloud providers (Alibaba, Tencent, Huawei) rather than foreign systems. This was described by BBC News as a "great illustration of splinternet."